


The Dawnless Day

by daisynorbury



Series: Four Days in March, III 3019, Gondor [3]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 13:13:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4102291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisynorbury/pseuds/daisynorbury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>March 10th, Third Age 3019. The Grey Company continue their journey southeast to Pelargir, and Gimli recollects the early days of his friendship with Legolas in Lothlorien.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dawnless Day

**Author's Note:**

> First published in the Autumn of 2004.

_One day of light we rode, and then came the day without dawn, and still we rode on, and Ciril and Ringlo we crossed._  
_-The Return of the King, pg. 151_

_It was dark and dim all day. From the sunless dawn until evening the heavy shadow had deepened, and all the hearts in the city were oppressed. Far above a great cloud streamed slowly westward from the Black Land, devouring light, borne upon a wind of war; but below the air was still and breathless, as if the Vale of Anduin waited for the onset of a ruinous storm._  
_\- pg. 80_

_But the next day there came no dawn, and the Grey Company passed on into the darkness of the storm of Mordor and were lost to mortal sight; but the Dead followed them._  
_\- pg. 63_

As Gimli had been distressed by the Dead, so Legolas was disturbed by the dawnless day. There was no relief from the dark, and he missed the sunlight as much as he would have underground. The storm from Mordor blew west on a war-wind high above, a black miasma cheating the land of morning. The sun did rise, but so little light managed to penetrate the gloom that the Grey Company traveled through a full day of twilight. They woke to twilight, rode in twilight, ate and drank in twilight. They nursed their fears in twilight, and ever the Dead followed them, eager and menacing. The Company had ridden long with dread nipping at their heels, and now they labored under the threatening storm above, as well. The hearts of the Dunedain were oppressed. Hope was difficult to muster, and most of them felt lost and useless: It was too late already, clearly. Sauron's hordes had taken Minas Tirith, and there was no longer any point. It was Aragorn's will that drove them on.

As they rode, Legolas kept looking up at the sky. He wanted to be calm: Gimli had grown more accustomed to the Dead but they still rattled him, and Legolas wanted to be a steady presence for him. But this… Today he thought he better understood the strain the dwarf had endured since Harrowdale. This new fear did not overwhelm, but it hung in his mind like an iron weight, sapping his strength. Not like the Balrog terror, of course, but more pervasive. It was fear not just for himself and his companions, but for the whole world, stretching long into a future beyond the sight even of the elves. Legolas felt his friend's arms tighten around his middle for a moment, and then Gimli said, "On a summer day the sun hides the light of the stars, but does not snuff them out. They remain- we just can't see them for a time." The elf lifted the dwarf's hand to his lips and kissed his fingers, and then threw his free arm behind him and around Gimli's back and pulled him closer.

Ethring on the Ringlo was just as empty as Calembel had been. The river water was dark and the horses might have shied away from it if not for their thirst. The company dismounted at the water's edge, and before they sat down to lunch they drew together in a clump. It appeared to Legolas that the Men fairly huddled together for comfort in the dim. They were unusually talkative, and touched one another more. Indeed he himself chose not to leave Gimli's reach throughout the meal, and was glad when Aragorn and Elladan and Elrohir joined them. Aragorn spoke to Gimli with friendship, as he had had little time to do since they left Rohan, and the sons of Elrond chatted with Legolas in Sindarin. If they noticed his attachment to the dwarf they did not remark upon it. After a while Halbarad began a song of the Angle, and those who knew it joined him. They resolutely ignored the dark and the Dead, and all their hearts were lifted.

Gimli was packing his lunch things away when he noticed the elf was studying him with more than his usual attention. He looked up. "What?"  
"When?"  
"When what?"  
"You said I'd been a dream before. When?"  
"Oh. That." His forehead bunched. "Hm. I'm not exactly sure. Let me think about it."  
Legolas nodded as he stood to gather his own things. "Okay."

* * *

**January 21st, early evening.**

Gimli chose a low rock in the clearing. The forest floor was flecked with leaf-fall. He gathered a handful, then sat down and began ripping apart a yellow one. Then a red. Then a brown. His physical weariness had left, but not even the magic serenity of Lothlorien was balm sufficient to entirely soothe the wounds of Moria. He often found he needed something to busy his hands.

The elf's approach was as silent as usual. "Aragorn asked me to tell you that supper is waiting."  
"Thank you." Tiny pieces of leaf collected in a pile at his feet.  
Legolas watched the dwarf's hands, frowning slightly. "Must you do that?"  
Gimli looked up at him. The elf's arms were crossed over his chest. "They were already dead on the ground."  
Legolas regarded him for a moment and then nodded, waiting for the dwarf to follow him to supper.  
  
"Gimli..."  
"I heard you the first time. Please leave me in peace."  
Legolas turned and walked away. 

When all the leaves he'd collected were reduced to scraps he stood to look for more, but hadn't gone a step before a length of rope landed with a thump at his feet. He stared at it for a moment and then looked up. "Legolas?"  
"Yes." The voice came from the west.  
"I thought you'd gone."  
"I can't very well leave you in peace when you're clearly not so."  
Gimli peered into the trees, thinking he saw a flicker of brown. He picked up the rope and examined it. "What's this?"  
"Something to fray. So the leaves of Lorien might be left to themselves."  
He sat down again and examined the end of the rope. It had been neatly cut and the fibers were still close. He pulled at one experimentally. "Go on, elf. You need to eat."  
"So do you. You missed lunch."

The dwarf rubbed a thumb across the cut end. "I'll be along in a moment." He worried at the rope slowly, feeling the rough fiber prick at his fingers. Bit by bit the rope came apart. When the larger strands were separated he worked at each of them in turn, until a cap of narrow threads covered the pile of leaf litter. He rose again, intending to find more leaves, when another length dropped to the ground in front of him. He whipped his head around, searching for Legolas. Wherever he was, he blended perfectly into the forest.

"Why are you pestering me?"  
"I like the leaves the way they are."  
Gimli placed his hands on his hips in annoyance. "So leave the whole rope then." A thin coil sailed out of the trees and landed on the rock behind him. He picked it up. Quietly, half to himself, he said, "So do I, actually."

Another two minutes passed as he peeled. He assumed Legolas had gone, and was surprised to notice a pair of feet just at the edge of his vision.  
"Then why do you tear them apart?"

Gimli swallowed and gazed resolutely at the rope. "I need to be doing something with my hands. I can't wander underground here, or bury my axe in anything, but at least I can keep my hands busy." He rubbed them together. "Dwarf to the core." He set the rope in his lap. "You probably can't fathom this, can't imagine how it might be so, but I love this place." His eyes swept the sunny clearing and the bright trees at its edge. "Despite Haldir, despite the bloody blindfold and despite _you_ , and Gandalf... everything, I love it. It's astonishing."

Legolas cocked his head to one side, surprised. "I understand why you are so taken with the Lady, but I'd have thought Lothlorien rather too elvish for your taste."  
Gimli yanked at a thread and it split with a satisfying snap. He frowned. "What would you know of my taste? I'm not so shortsighted that I can't appreciate beauty other than that of dwarf-make."  
Chagrin flashed across the elf's face, but Gimli missed it, absorbed as he was.

Legolas sat down on the rock next to him, a little apart. "I did not mean to suggest... I apologize."  
"Did not mean to suggest what?"  
"I meant that as levity. It was poorly chosen."  
"Did not mean to suggest what?"  
"That you are willfully blind."  
His frown deepened for a moment, then relaxed when he was satisfied that the elf was sincere. He nodded. "Well. Apology accepted. Thank you."  
"And it was unfair of me not to tell you about the blindfold. I'm sorry for that, too."

This time the dwarf looked up, surprised in his turn. Legolas was peering off into the trees. Gimli regarded him for a moment, his hands busy with the rope. "Had you known him long?"  
Legolas turned, puzzled. "Haldir?"  
The dwarf gave him an exasperated look. "Gandalf."  
The elf's face fell. "Oh. Since I was small."  
Gimli nodded, eyes on the rope again. "Me too." He made a sound with his teeth. "Did Gandalf look any younger when you were little?"  
"Exactly the same. Although I remember a period some time ago when he took to wearing a red hat. Very dramatic."  
Gimli grinned in spite of himself. "Is that a joke?"  
The elf raised a hand briefly. "Swear to Varda."  
"How dwarvish of him. Balin would have been proud." Gimli's smile faded at his mention of Balin and his eyes returned to the forest floor.  
Legolas saw the muscles in the dwarf's jaw clench. "You lost more in Moria than the rest of us."

Gimli pulled out a short knife and cut away several loose strips of rope before speaking. "It's not like we hadn't suspected. No word for so many years can't be a good sign… but to have it spelled out like that. And to know they died in terror..." Legolas looked down at him, concern creasing his features. "... And I feel guilty because, as I said, despite everything, I love Lothlorien. I'm glad to be here. Glad to be under these great gold trees, glad to be near her... glad of the rest."  
"Why guilty?"  
"Glad when I should be grieving?"  
"You can do both. Indeed I think you must do both, or be swallowed up."  
Gimli turned to peer at him. "And you? Are you doing both?"

Legolas wrapped his arms around his knees and held them to his chest. "It is good to be in a forest again. And with elves, though the Galadhrim are... a bit foreign."  
The dwarf grinned again. "You don’t say."  
The elf rested his chin on his knee and shut his eyes. "And the air here is sweet, and the stars very bright. They help keep me from despair. In fact I think I see them the clearer now that I let their light drive everything else from my mind." He let out a breath. "I find it hard to rest knowing that... thing is awake. When I do sleep, I often wake wishing I hadn't bothered. Honestly I don't know if I'm doing both." Gimli nodded, wrapping rope around his hands. "The fellowship doesn't know, but every night I go off to a treetop and sing. I need it now like I need to breathe. "

The dwarf looked up at him, struck by the knowledge that Legolas was grieving so, and was suddenly ashamed that he'd assumed his own grief the more acute. He untangled his hands from the rope and laid it beside him on the rock. He stared out into the trees. The elf remained silent. "I think I'd like to hear that."  
Legolas drew back, eyes narrowed.  
"That is… if you wouldn't mind."  
"I thought you disliked my singing."  
"No. Well. Maybe I did, for a while, before I bothered to listen."  
Legolas sucked in a cheek briefly. "There is little to occupy your hands in the kind of talan I've been visiting. They're just look-outs. Bare."  
"I could bring something to carve."  
Legolas looked away.

Gimli picked up the rope again. "Never mind. I'm probably the last thing you want intruding on your midnight arias."  
Legolas stood. "If we do not return soon Merry and Pippin will eat our share."  
Gimli nodded, rope in hand, and followed.

* * *

As they made ready to leave Ethring, Gimli overheard Legolas speak something low and elvish in Arod's ear, and he suddenly wondered if the horse understood the new bond that his two riders shared. He pondered that as they rode, and the minds of horses in general.

Throughout the afternoon all among them noticed and disliked the cloying stillness of the air. It was not warm, but humid and stuck to them, and their clothes felt heavy. It seemed harder to breathe, too, as if they were high in the mountains or the air somehow less wholesome. And they did not know if it was a trick of the imagination, but it seemed to smell of soot. Or decay. 

They stopped for the night at a farm in Dor-en-Ernil. It too was abandoned, and the gates to the animal enclosures stood open. Their horses gathered around the pond, and the company took heart at the discovery of a barn stacked with bales of straw.

* * *

**January 21st, night.**

After supper and a pipe with the men and hobbits Gimli sat down on the floor of the pavilion with a block of wood that one of Galadriel's people provided for him at his request. They told him it was from a tree that had been felled by lightning. He had little experience with wood, and it was being resolutely silent. Every cut had gone wrong, and when Legolas appeared he had been just holding it in both hands, trying to listen.

"Are you coming?"  
The dwarf looked up at him, surprised. "Are you sure?"  
Legolas shrugged.  
Gimli waited.  
"Yes. Come on." He turned and strode out, and the dwarf stood quickly and followed him. The hobbits exchanged puzzled looks.

They walked what seemed like miles, and Gimli was getting sleepy, but he thought it best not to mention it. He had stopped paying attention and when the elf suddenly ceased walking he bumped into the back of him. "Ai. Sorry."  
Legolas just stared up into the branches. "This one."

Dusk had deepened and night descended on them. The rope ladders were strong and sturdy, but still it took the dwarf a good minute longer to reach the top than it had Legolas. When at last he climbed onto the flet he was a bit dizzy from the height, and grateful to discover that there were walls on two sides, a short roof, and - to his surprise - a blue-and-grey blanket and cushion stacked in the corner. The elf was sitting at the very edge of the platform, his feet dangling into nothing, humming softly.

"I thought you said these things were bare."  
Legolas looked around. "Oh. Lucky, that. Someone must have left them here."  
"Is it all right if I use them?"  
"Help yourself."

Gimli picked up the blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. It was too smooth to be wool. Probably some plant fiber. Legolas continued to hum. The dwarf sat down on the cushion, his back to the wall, and pulled out his knife and the woodblock. The elf began to sing in earnest. The song began low but brisk and bright, and Gimli listened as he prodded at the wood. All he knew so far was that this thing in his hands didn't want corners, and he whittled the sharp edges away a tiny bit at a time. Every now and then he caught a word he recognized- _Mithrandir. Valinor. keleb._

After some time the song changed. The melody was the same, but Legolas had slowed a bit and switched to minor. The difference was haunting, and Gimli looked up. The endless net of stars hung snow-white in the sky just beyond them. Their light brushed the treetops and shone on the elf's hair and shoulders. He looked down at the wood again and wondered how he'd failed to notice the pale color the starlight cast on its grain. He rubbed his thumbs into it, polishing gently, letting the music flow over him. It slowed again, and he put down the knife. The wood was warm in his hands as he watched the elf's back.

  


Gimli's eyes fluttered open and he realized he'd been sleeping. Legolas was still sitting at the edge of the flet, and still singing. The dwarf shook off the doze and stood. He crossed the floor and sat down next to him, but did not swing his legs over the side. Legolas broke off and said, "I didn't hear you carving."  
"I fell asleep. Don't stop on my account."  
Legolas nodded and resumed the song, and they gazed out at Borgil together, a ruby set in velvet black sky. Gimli recognized parts of the tune from before, but they were changed: simpler, with longer notes. As they trickled down the scale the elf's voice dropped lower, and slower, and just before he reached a whisper the song ended on a seventh, leaving Gimli feeling bereft and waiting. He breathed.

When Legolas spoke it was louder than necessary. "Well?"  
Gimli jumped and stared at him, startled. "I'm sorry?"  
"You said you thought you'd like to listen. Was it worth the trouble?"  
At first the dwarf could do nothing but nod. "It was worth more trouble than I went to, and I regret falling asleep."  
The elf seemed to soften. When he spoke again it was more quietly. "I've finished for the night if you'd like to return to the ground."  
Gimli nodded. "I feel uneasy up here, but I don't think I can find my own way back to the pavilion."  
Legolas took another long look at Menelvagor before he stood, stretching. "Right."

Legolas needed less time to descend the tree, and Gimli more, but when the dwarf was safely back on solid ground the elf betrayed no sign of impatience. They walked in silence. Gimli could see well in the dark, but the route through the trees struck him as unnecessarily circuitous, and he had to follow close to keep from getting lost.

Soon the lights of the pavilion winked ahead of them, but it wasn't until the elf stopped that Gimli found words. "Thank you, Legolas. May I listen again tomorrow?"  
The elf turned toward him. "Why?" He sounded genuinely puzzled.  
"Why? I enjoyed it."  
"You were forty feet up a tree, at night, in winter, listening to a lament in a language you don't understand."  
Gimli nodded and then shrugged. "Beauty not of dwarf-make."  
Legolas looked to the pavilion for a moment. "Well. I think you can find your way from here."  
Gimli turned and headed toward the lights. "Aye. Good night."

Legolas spent the next day among the Galadhrim, and Gimli found his mind much occupied by the previous night. Borgil glittered before him once more, his back pressed into the talan wall. He brooded on both song and singer. At supper Baggins asked if he was all right. "Fine, fine. Tired. Up too late." Frodo nodded and didn't press him. Merry looked at him a bit longer, but said nothing.

* * *

When finally the Grey Company lay themselves down on piles of straw Legolas handed Gimli a sprig of small green leaves. "There's a kitchen garden 'round the side of the farmhouse. We found some early mint."  
Gimli took it from him and popped it in his mouth. "Thanks." Then he whispered, "Does Arod know?" They'd chosen a place in the barn a little apart from the others, but within earshot.  
Legolas matched his whisper. "About the mint?"  
The dwarf rolled his eyes. "Does he understand…" he waved a hand between them, "…About us?"  
"Oh. I think so, yes."  
"Does he mind?"  
Legolas shook his head. "Mind?"  
"I think he's not very fond of me, and I was wondering if it bothered him that I'm getting so familiar with his favorite passenger. And on his own back, no less."  
The elf grinned. "No, he doesn't mind."

Gimli nodded and yawned. He lay facing Legolas, head on one arm. "I never thought I'd be so glad of a heap of straw."  
Legolas reached out and pushed a lock of hair from Gimli's cheek. "I look forward to the day that promises a real bed at the end of it. And real time to spend with you."  
"Mm. Can I have a hot bath, too, while we're at it?"  
"Certainly."  
"And clean clothes?"  
"Poros cotton."  
Gimli stretched and yawned. "I like this game."  
"What else?"  
He thought for a moment. "Roast lamb."  
"And Beorning honeycake."  
"Oh, thanks. I was hungry enough already." Legolas grinned. "What about you?"  
"Me?"  
"If we're playing 'When-the-war-is-over' then you get to play, too."  
"Ah." He looked away with a slight frown. "When the war is over."

The elf's grim tone bespoke thoughts in quite a different direction from what Gimli had intended. The dwarf poked his shoulder gently. "Hey. I just meant creature comforts."  
Legolas's smile returned slowly, and then his eyes. "All right then: Dorwinion red, a bottle each. My flute. As much garden as I can cope with. Lots of time in which to go to find the sun."  
Gimli chuckled at that.  
The elf's smile faded a bit. "May I ask you something serious anyway?"  
"Of course."  
"Last night you sounded as though you have little hope for the future."

Gimli rolled over on his back. "If our hopes for victory were with Aragorn alone I would not doubt, and certainly I don't doubt Frodo's heart, or Sam's, but I can't imagine two hobbits walking alone all the way to Mt. Doom without being discovered. Can you?"

Legolas breathed and set his jaw. "I do imagine it." Gimli took his hand. "But… maybe I do because I must. The alternative is unthinkable."

* * *

**January 22nd, evening.**

After the evening meal Gimli parked himself on a couch with his pipe and listened to the hobbits chatter. Legolas had not answered his question, and he didn't hold out much hope of being invited to join him a second time. He'd been enjoying an early night, and had in fact stowed his pipe, closed his eyes, thrown a blanket over himself, and was drifting off when Pippin said something that caught his attention. 

"Oh, hello Legolas. We were about to turn in. I think Gimli's asleep."

He waited for the elf's reaction. He heard nothing, but felt a hand on his shoulder after a moment. "Do you still want to come with me?"  
He opened his eyes and found he was looking up into the elf's. He swallowed. "Yes. But… shoes first."  
Legolas nodded, then floated out of the pavilion as silently as he had come.

Gimli felt four pairs of hobbit eyes on him as he laced up his boots. They were apparently either too polite or too shy to ask anything, and he didn't volunteer any information. He wasn't about to tell them that he was going tree-climbing with an elf. He just touched his hood on the way out. "G'night lads."

The walk seemed shorter the second night, and it didn't take Gimli long to realize that it was a different tree. It was similarly outfitted with two walls and some bedding.  
"More cushions?"  
Legolas didn't even look. "The locals seem to be a bit careless with their pillows." 

The elf had set a silver lamp on the floor, and Gimli sat down next to it. Legolas started singing right away, and the dwarf drew out his woodblock. The song was different, and this time there were no words in it he recognized. It seemed to be less a song than a chant. Few notes, and slow. It went on forever. Gimli scraped at the woodblock ("wood _ball_ now", he thought) with his knife, and did not fall asleep. He thought about home, and stone and proper tools with which to carve it, and his family, and gold, and the interminable time in Rivendell. He thought about the great peaks gleaming in the winter sun- Baraz, Zirak, Shathur, and how Khazad-dum must have looked in its heyday. He had been so excited at the chance to see it, and then to have… He thought about Galadriel. Shreds and shavings littered the floor beneath him.

Presently he looked up, and was a bit surprised to see that the elf was leaning back on the floor on his elbows. His hair spilled down into a shining puddle. Gimli put down the wood and went over to sit with him. Wisps of cloud slid across the sky, dark brushstrokes in the scattered stars. The dwarf sat a long time waiting for Legolas to finish. He was amazed that the elf could sing such a simple tune for so long, and in apparent comfort. It was soothing, almost meditative, but if he'd tried to sing it himself he'd have stopped with a sore throat ages ago.

When at last the elf was finished, he straightened, curling his fingers around the edge of the talan floor. Gimli sat a good twelve inches from the precipice.  
"What do you think about, when you sing?"  
"What _don't_ I think about. Home, here, Elbereth, Gandalf, the stars. What Galadriel showed me. Sometimes I don’t think at all."  
"Do you sing to the stars even when it's raining?"  
Legolas looked over his shoulder at him. "Yes, though I think of it as singing to the rain."  
"And it helps?"  
Legolas returned his gaze to the sky. "I don't know if it’s that it helps or that I can't _not_ do it." He tapped the floor absently. "But yes, it helps. How are your hands?"

Gimli realized that his hands had been resting quietly in his lap since he put down the carving. He picked them up and looked at them, a little surprised. "Good. I think. I think your singing helps me, too, though I don't understand it."  
"Nor do I, half the time. I don't even listen- I just need to make the sound." The lamp gleamed behind them. "It's… a little odd, knowing I have an audience."  
"The locals listen, surely."  
"Maybe, but many of them are singing themselves. And they do not listen with such attention."  
Gimli snorted and shook his head. "You give me too much credit. I fell asleep last night, remember?"  
Legolas just nodded. 

"Well. I should leave you be." He stood. "Thank you. Again."  
"Should I walk with you?"  
"No, I paid attention this time. I can find my way." He pocketed the woodblock and started down the ladder.  
"All right. Good night." Legolas waited until he heard the dwarf alight on the ground before adding- too quietly for Gimli to hear- "And thank you."

The others were asleep when Gimli returned to the pavilion, and he soon joined them. Another reason he loved Lothlorien was that here he could really rest. It was the best, truest rest he'd had since he left home. The Golden Wood bestowed a sleep wherein he felt time flow gently past, and leave him be. Time made no demands on that sleep, and he was free to watch the shadow puppets swirl through their absurd adventures, and not care very much about anything. They were soap bubbles, his dreams in Lothlorien- little floating rainbows that danced for a moment and then melted into something else: a hammer in his hand, ringing on steel; laughing with his cousins over beer; sitting before a warm fire with a book. And on this night, many of the pleasant, warm little scenes had a paler face in them- running over snow, wading knee-deep in a stream, singing beside a waterfall, balanced in a treetop- and it was always calm, and often smiling. 

* * *

Legolas had curled up with his companion and was nearly asleep when the dwarf said, "Lorien. You were in my dream in Lothlorien." The elf thought about that for a bit. _Already in Lorien?_ Then Gimli asked, "Why did you want to know?"

"Time. I'm curious about how time is different for you."  
Gimli nodded against his shoulder. "'Ripples ever repeated in the long stream', you mean."  
"Mm. Sometimes a fish jumps, and that is a sight to behold."

The dwarf breathed deeply. "I think I cannot imagine your experience of time. You'll always have enough."

Legolas leaned closer, burying his nose in curls. "For some things, with luck. Not for everything."

They slept.


End file.
